Founder Lawrence Speaks at CSIS Webinar — Public Consultation on Proposed Amendments to the Companies Act
The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) set up the Companies Act Working Group in January 2018 to review several areas in the Companies Act (CA). The review was part of ACRA’s effort to ensure that Singapore’s corporate law and regulatory framework remain competitive. On 20 July 2020, ACRA launched the Public Consultation on Proposed Amendments to the Companies Act.
To support the public consultation, the Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore (CSIS) conducted a webinar on 12 August 2020 to discuss the recommendations to the proposed amendments to the Companies Act.
3E Accounting Founder and Director Lawrence Chai was one of the panel speakers at the Webinar titled, Public Consultation on Proposed Amendments to the Companies Act.
Here are the key recommendations discussed during the webinar consultation session:
- Facilitating digitalization
This includes dematerialization of share certificates, facilitating digital meetings as well as digitalization and communications of records such as company documentation.
- Types of companies and refinement financial reporting criteria
– The concept of “publicly accountable company” for the purposes of financial reporting should be introduced into the CA.
– Micro non-publicly accountable companies should be allowed to prepare reduced/simplified financial statements (e.g. containing only the statement of comprehensive income, statement of financial position and specific key disclosures).
– All companies should audit their financial statements except dormant companies and small non-publicly accountable companies.
– The small company audit exemption criteria should be refined by removing the criterion of a number of employees from the current small company definition.
- Matters relating to directors and company secretaries
– The prohibition against a sole director of a company appointing himself or herself as the company secretary should be removed.
– A director of a company that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a foreign holding company should be exempted from disclosing his or her interests in the foreign holding company pursuant to sections 164 and 165.
– The decriminalisation of directors’ offences should be reviewed.
- Changes to Form 45 and model Constitution
– Form 45 of the Second Schedule to the Companies Regulations should be updated to include a statement that the director was qualified to act as a director.
– The constitution should continue to be a mandatory requirement, and the two model constitutions in the Companies (Model Constitutions) Regulations 2015 should be retained and updated.
– The model constitution for a private company limited by shares should be amended to reproduce the requirements in section 18(1)(a)- (b).
ACRA and the Companies Act Working Group will take the public’s views and concerns into consideration to draft the appropriate provisions and amendments to the Companies Act for streamlining filing process and updating regulatory requirements.
Read 3E Accounting’s submission to the Public Consultation on Proposed Amendments to the Companies Act here.
